The current phase of talks with IMF would mostly focus to finalize Pakistan’s federal and provincial budgets for the fiscal year 2016-17.
Finance Secretary Waqar Masood Khan is leading the delegation, in Dubai for five-day technical level talks with the IMF mission.
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, who is currently attending the Asian Development Bank’s annual meeting in Frankfurt, will join the policy-level dialogue with the Fund next weekend to address the outstanding issues.
The government government would discuss its budget strategy paper for 2016-17 with the fund.
The government mostly at ease with most of the benchmarks and performance indicators, except for the setback to the privatisation agenda that has been a major concern for the IMF.
The govt also needs to collect Rs 760bn revenue in the final two months of the fiscal year 2015-16 to achieve the revenue collection target.
 has began in Dubai yesterday in connection with the $6.5 billion extended Fund Facility (EFF).){kind=link}